Thursday, July 21, 2011

I always see loads of industrial molds at the Brimfield Market. I find the glove molds creepy and weird but had never seen, and liked, the action figure molds I found this year. I thought it would be great to have a collection for a boys room, there are so many different things you could use them for... clothing hooks, curtain tie backs...

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Slowly but surely I am putting together all our images from Brimfield July Market and will be posting them for everyone, thank you for your patience! It is always fun going through and looking back at all the pictures of the funky things we find! A combination of the heat slowing things down, and the store having its busiest Summer yet, posting Brimfield July 2011 trends and finds has been on my to do list for days!!So here is a start, our first post will be no surprise to most, "Industrial Chic" is not going anywhere! Stay tuned as they will be posting images from Brimfield throughout the next week. Thanks everyone and I hope you are having a great summer. Please feel free to comment or send us emails as we love to hear from you!

I really liked a lot of these lamps, most of them were made out of industrial style lamps and old car parts. I would love to design an office with s few of these and loved that they all had a unique gadget, some leaving you unsure as to what it was! I LOVED these old fans, its hard to see in the pictures how large they actually are but how great would be for a pool house?

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Today I received an email from a friend who is helping a friend collect books for her first grade public school class in Missouri.

The school only supplies desks and textbooks, and we would love to help build a classroom library for these children. The donated books will stay with the school for years to come. Many of the students are from low-income families from Saint Louis City. Their experience with reading and their exposure to books at home is limited.

If you are interested in donating a book, or a few, please take a look at the "wish list" of books to donate And help foster a love of reading! Maybe you have a favorite childhood book, or a book that your children love?

Friday, July 8, 2011

Have you read The Witching Hour by Anne Rice? If you havent you should, its such a great book!! I couldnt put it down, But it's scary. I believe in ghosts, and I always have for as long as I can remember. If I am staying in a house I think has ghosts I sleep with my I pod on with the volume very low and I will sleep all night like that. If I wake up, I WILL NOT open my eyes because I am insane. So when I read this book there was no way I would leave it on my bedside table at night, nope, I shoved it under my bed so I wouldnt wake up and see it.

Recently my Sister forwarded me pictures of Anne Rice's Mansion. Anne Rice is famous for her Vampires and Witches, and her stately New Orleans Garden District Mansion is famous as well... It was the setting for the Mayfair Witch Series. The Mansion was built in the 1850's and Rice owned and lived in it from 1989 to 2004. While looking for pictures of the home I came across this article by Melissa Haug on the history of the house including some amazing images. I loved reading it and thought I would share.

One of the world's most dazzling residential neighborhoods – containing a time capsule of historic southern mansions – is located in the Louisiana city of New Orleans. The Garden District, a large square area bounded by Jackson Avenue, Louisiana Avenue, Magazine St. and St. Charles Ave, is the live oak tree-lined "American" sector of this southern city. For the most part, Americans who settled in the Garden District during the nineteenth century shunned local Creole influence. They were more interested in something more permanent that clearly showed their wealth and taste. The architecture of these historic houses is a fusion of classic styles with influence of Spanish, French, Italianate and English, as well as Greek Revival. These stately homes represent some of the best work of some of the leading architects and builders of the 1800s.

Today a stately Garden District mansion is on the market for nearly for $4.5 million. This historic house, located at 1239 First Street, was previously owned by author Anne Rice and is the setting for her novel, The Witching Hour. In the story, the historic house was the ancestral home for the Mayfair family and their generations of male and female witches.

The mansion, originally known as the Brevard House, is a particularly fine example of the large, narrow and long, two story residences built in the Garden District in the prosperous decade that preceded the Civil War. The 1850s Greek Revival style residence boasts nearly 9,000 square feet on three floors with five bedrooms and six full baths. The home features period touches such as murals in the dining room, ornate millwork and beveled mirrors. It also has a large, heated salt-water pool, fish pond, guest house, staff house and "lush grounds with maintained gardens." There are five bedrooms, six full baths and two half-baths.

In 1852, Albert Brevard purchased the property; in 1857 he commissioned architect James Calrow and builder Charles Pride to construct the stately two story brick building. Brevard died within two years and the mansion was inherited by his daughter, Elizabeth Brevard Woods. The First Street façade has a tetrastyle, two-level entry porch with four square end columns, four round columns, and ornamental iron grillwork.

The two centrally located round columns of the first level are of the Ionic order, and those of the upper level are of the Corinthian order. A small, two-level, wrought-iron porch on the Chestnut Street side leads into the “hexagonal” library wing. This porch and a larger, two-level porch on the southeast garden side of the main block are both fairly typical of the wrought-iron porches added to new Orleans domestic structures in the mid-nineteenth century.

The prominent doors and doorways of the first floor main entry hall all have Greek Revival narrow moldings and low pediments with decorative scrollwork. Moreover, each of the major rooms of the first floor has a wide, elaborate molded cornice and a large decorative plaster medallion in the middle of the ceiling.

One of the most notable decorative features of the Brevard House is the flattened elliptical archway that separates the double parlors. The moldings, rosettes, and supporting scroll-brackets are all fine examples of the decorative trimmings of the Greek Revival at the mid-nineteenth century.

Detail of the first floor parlor fireplace topped with a custom-fit beveled mirror. Note the decorative plaster medallion in the middle of the ceiling.

The first floor dining room is decorated with wall murals.

The Below Images are of the current House:

from The Witching Hour by Anne Rice:

"The doctor had never been inside an antebellum mansion until that spring in New Orleans. And the old house really did have white fluted columns on the front...Greek Revival style they call it -- a long violet-gray town house on a dark shady corner in the Garden District, it's front gate guarded it seemed by two enormous oaks. The iron lace railings were made in a rose pattern and much festooned with vines; purple wisteria, the yellow Virginia creeper and bougainvillea of a dark, incandescent pink....

(Image from victoriana.com)

Always he paused at the largest tree that had lifted the iron fence with its bulbous roots. He could not have gotten his arms around the trunk of it. It reached all the way from the pavement to the house itself, twisted limbs clawing at the shuttered windows beyond the banisters, leaves enmeshed with the flowering vines."

Great shots of the pool where Michael was found ...

These two pictures look like the side porch where comatose Deirdre spent her days... or possibly the windows Antha fell to her death?

I love the images of the inside of the house where Mary Beth, Julien and Carlotta all lived.

I can see Stella dancing the Charleston in the Ballroom below before she she, too, came to a tragic end like her relatives.

The murals in the house date back the the nineteenth century.

I wonder who lives there now, and I wonder if they to sleep with their Ipod on?!?

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

A classic image for cycle enthusiasts! George Massias created this beautiful advertisement in 1895 promoting the new "Gladiator" bicycle. Massias proved, more than a century ago, the famous advertising adage: Sex Sells.

This strikingly oversized art piece is an open-edition print, produced using serigraphy on the highest-quality paper.

(Read to the bottom and you'll find out... lots of love to NYC's Fashion Tastemaker and dear old friend...)

Lauren Santo Domingo

Fresh-off-the-runway fashion at Moda Operandi

KELLY KENNY

Moda Operandi was dreamed up and executed in style by co-founders Aslaug Magnusdottir and Lauren Santo Domingo. Moda Operandi is a unique members only online luxury shopping experience that has received high marks and rave reviews from the fashion world. As soon as a fashion designer's clothes sashay off the runway, members can log in to Moda Operandi and scoop up those garments. You don't need to be Carrie Bradshaw to love this business model. In addition to being your own buyer—no more waiting to see what large retail buyers choose for their stores—members also enjoy perks like a personal shopping assistant and renowned stylists' recommendations.

In addition to being Moda Operandi's Creative Director, Lauren is also a New York City-based fashion stylist and Contributing Editor for VogueMagazine. We got a chance to chat with Lauren, an Old Greenwich, Connecticut native, about what makes her style clock tick.

Marc Jacobs Resort 2012

Favorite designers… Proenza Schouler, Erdem and Alexander Wang.
Personal style quirks… I hate to have too many clothes! I prefer to have a few great things that I wear a lot, than a lot of things that I wear very little. Quality not quantity is my motto!

I spend my weekends… with my new baby! He is growing so fast I want to treasure every minute!
Favorite thing to do when visiting Greenwich… I like to visit Abigail Fox Designs in Old Greenwich. She is a childhood friend with whom I share a passion for books and beautiful things! Her selection is fabulous! Then I would get some Garden Caterers to go, and have a picnic at one of my many favorite spots at Tod Point.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

I am so excited the July 4th weekend has arrived! I have already enjoyed a few Dark & Stormy's with friends, and am looking forward to seeing Huck's flying leap off the dock into salty Long Island Sound tomorrow... The weather was amazing today, truly a perfect Summer beach day, and hopefully there are more to come.

I love having my store in our small "beach" town and seeing kids riding around on their bikes picking up lunch and headed to the beach on Saturdays. It reminds me of my own 10+ hour summer days spent at Rocky with all my best friends...

This morning a customer and I were chatting about how great the Summers are here, and she asked me what my favorite summer "look" was...